News Byte: 2014 Marketing Budgets Will Rise, But Be Stretched Thin

Two-fifths of B2C marketers will see budgets increase at an average of 3.4% in 2014. The healthy infusion is supported by success: 77% of senior marketing executives surveyed by Forrester Research said they had met or exceeded their goals in 2013.

But will it be enough? More than half of the 52 marketers who took part in Forrester's Marketing Budget Online Survey said they plan to increase spending on digital methods, and nearly two-thirds of them said they would decrease traditional advertising to fund them. While 20% of their budgets, on average, will go to traditional advertising, 15% will be devoted to consumer response and direct marketing efforts, and 12% will go to digital advertising and marketing.

Only 6% will be used for data analytics—the same portion earmarked for content marketing—and that may fall short, according to Forrester Analyst Tracy Stokes. “You will soon be seeing the consequences of these ever more thinly stretched budgets,” she wrote in a report based on the survey findings. “Marketing leaders will fail to fund innovation and will under-invest in less sexy backend support such as IT and analytics.”

A good number of marketers will be hard-pressed to find the funds for all their planned efforts. The survey found that while B2C companies devoted 10% of revenues to marketing on average last year, a considerable 40% plowed back less than 5% of sales into marketing.

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